Moonlight Wins Best Picture From La La Land
The Oscar for Best Picture was so close for La La Land, but then Moonlight snatched it away, literally.
Just minutes after presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty announced that the musical La La Land had won the best picture Oscar at the 89th annual Academy Awards on Sunday, it was announced that they had somehow gotten Emma Stone’s Best Actress card instead of the right one, and it was in fact Moonlight that won the night’s big prize.
“There was a time when I thought this movie was impossible because I couldn’t bring it to fruition,” Moonlight director Barry Jenkins said while accepting the Oscar. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell another story, so everybody behind me on this stat said, ‘No, that is not acceptable.’”
After the show, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that tallied the votes and guarded the winners list, said, “We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred.
“We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation.”
In all, Moonlight picked up three statues – including adapted screen play and supporting actor for Mahershala Ali – in the ceremony hosted by Kimmel, but La La Land did pretty well winning six Oscars, including best director for Damien Chazelle – the youngest person to win the category – and best actress from Emma Stone. Fences star Viola Davis and Manchester by the Sea star Casey Affleck picked up their first Oscars, for supporting actress and best actor respectively.
In his opening monologue, Kimmel skewered Donald Trump and the Academy’s record on diversity: “I want to say thank you to President Trump. I mean, remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars was racist?” He later took out his phone and tweeted “u up?” to the Twitter-addicted president.
In a sarcasm-filled speech, Kimmel, who was hosting for the first time, started by saying how he’d been told he needed to deliver a message of unity. “The country is divided right now. People have been telling me I need to say something to unite us. I’m not the man to unite this country,” he added, before delivering the only serious part of his monologue.
“There are millions and millions of people watching right now, and if every one of you took a minute to reach out to one person you disagree with and have a positive, considerate conversation – not as liberals or conservatives but as Americans – if we all did that it would make America great again. It starts with us.”
After his opening monologue, Kimmel continued to jab at Trump and his administration throughout the show. He referred to Ben Carson, Trump’s pick as secretary of housing and urban development, as Doctor Strange; he referenced the president’s obsession with “fake news” and joked that it was nice to have a president who believes in the arts and sciences while introducing Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Kimmel encouraged speeches that Trump “will tweet about in all caps during his 5 a.m. bowel movement tomorrow.”
The host also reignited his long-running fake feud with Matt Damon, which began with his exchanging of parody songs with the actor and Kimmel’s then girlfriend, Sarah Silverman, in the early 2000s.
Kimmel mocked Damon’s decision to give the lead role in Kenneth Lonergan’s Oscar-nominated Manchester By The Sea to Affleck. “He gave that role to his childhood friend Casey Affleck. He handed what turned out to be an Oscar caliber role over to his friend and made a Chinese ponytail movie instead, and that movie, The Great Wall, went on to lose $80 million.”
Kimmel also dedicated a section to Meryl Streep, calling her overrated and mimicking Trump’s criticism after the actor used a speech at the Golden Globe Awards in January to address the president.
Politics was a big part of the show, and not just in Kimmel’s jokes. There were many blue ACLU ribbons on tuxedos and gowns. Most notable was actor Gael Garcia Bernal’s simple declaration that “As a Mexican, as a Latin American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I am against any form of wall that wants to separate us,” as he presented the Oscars for animated films.
Also, Iranian American astronaut Anousheh Ansari accepted the best foreign film Oscar, which awarded to Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, who skipped the ceremony as a statement against the White House’s attempt at an entry ban on residents of his country and six others. “Out of respect for the people of my country and those of six other nations” that have been “disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.,” he wrote. “Dividing the world into the us and our enemies categories creates fear.”
Below is the list of winners and nominees (winners are listed first in bold):
Best Picture
Moonlight
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Actor in a Leading Role
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences
Actress in a Leading Role
Emma Stone, La La Land
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
Actor in a Supporting Role
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals
Actress in a Supporting Role
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nichole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea
Animated Feature Film
Zootopia
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life As a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Directing
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Barry Jenkins, screenplay; Tarell Alvin McCraney, story, Moonlight
Eric Heisserer, Arrival
August Wilson, Fences
Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures
Luke Davies, Lion
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou, The Lobster
Mike Mills, 20th Century Women
Documentary (Feature)
O.J.: Made in America
Fire at Sea
I Am Not Your Negro
Life, Animated
13th
Documentary (Short Subject)
The White Helments
Extremis
4.1 Miles
Joes’s Violin
Watani: My Homeland
Foreign Language Film
The Salesman, Iran
Land of Mine, Denmark
A Man Called Ove, Sweden
Tanna, Austrailia
Toni Erdmann, Germany
Short Film (Animated)
Piper
Blind Vaysha
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Pearl
Short Film (Live Action)
Sing
Ennemis Interieurs
La Femme et le TGV
Silent Nights
Timecode
Film Editing
John Gilbert, Hacksaw Ridge
Joe Walker, Arrival
Jake Roberts, Hell or High Water
Tom Cross, La La Land
Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon, Moonlight
Cinematograpny
Linus Sandgren, La La Land
Bradford Young, Arrival
Greig Fraser, Lion
James Laxton, Moonlight
Rodrigo Prieto, Silence
Costume Design
Colleen Atwood, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Joanna Johnston, Allied
Consolata Boyle, Florence Foster Jenkins
Madeline Fontaine, Jackie
Mary Zophres, La La Land
Makeup and Hairstyling
Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini and Christopher Nelson, Suicide Squad
Eva von Bahr and Love Larson, A Man Called Ove
Joel Harlow and Richard Alonzo, Star Trek Beyond
Music (Original Score)
Justin Hurwitz, La La Land
Mica Levi, Jackie
Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka, Lion
Nicholas Britell, Moonlight
Thomas Newman, Passengers
Music (Original Song)
City of Stars from La La Land
Audition (The Fools Who Dream) from La La Land
Can’t Stop the Feeling from Trolls
The Empty Chair from Jim: The James Foley Story
How Far I’ll Go from Moana
Production Design
Production Design: David Wasco; Set Decoration: Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, La La Land
Production Design: Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Paul Hotte, Arrival
Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Production Design: Jess Gonchor; Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh, Hail! Ceasar
Production Design: Guy Hendrix Dyas; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena, Passengers
Sound Editing
Sylvain Bellemare, Arrival
Wylie Stateman and Renée Tondelli, Deepwater Horizon
Robert Mackenzie and Andy Wright, Hacksaw Ridge
Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan, La La Land
Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman, Sully
Sound Mixing
Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace, Hacksaw Ridge
Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye, Arrival
Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee and Steve A. Morrow, La La Land
David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Mac Ruth, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
Visual Effects
Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones and Dan Lemmon, The Jungle Book
Craig Hammack, Jason Snell, Jason Billington and Burt Dalton, Deepwater Horizon
Stephane Ceretti, Richard Bluff, Vincent Cirelli and Paul Corbould, Doctor Strange
Steve Emerson, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean and Brad Schiff, Kubo and the Two Strings
John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel and Neil Corbould, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Editor-in-Chief Mark Heckathorn is a journalist, movie buff and foodie. He oversees DC on Heels editorial operations as well as strategic planning and staff development. Reach him with story ideas or suggestions at dcoheditor (at) gmail (dot) com.