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'Moonlight'
wins
best
picture
at
botched
Academy
Awards
By JAKE
COYLE
LOS
ANGELES
- Oscar
winner,
take
two.
Barry
Jenkins'
"Moonlight"
- not,
as it
turned
out, "La
La Land"
- won
best
picture
at the
Academy
Awards
in a
historic
Oscar
upset
and an
unprecedented
fiasco
that saw
one
winner
swapped
for
another
while
the "La
La Land"
producers
were in
mid-speech.
Presenters
Warren
Beatty
and Faye
Dunaway
apparently
took the
wrong
envelope
- the
one for
best
actress
winner
Emma
Stone -
onto the
stage
for the
final
prize.
When
they
read "La
La Land"
as the
winner,
representatives
for
ballot
tabulators
PwC -
formerly
Price
Waterhouse
Coopers
-
realized
the
mistake
and
raced
onstage
to try
to stop
the
acceptance
speeches.
Host
Jimmy
Kimmel
came
forward
to
inform
the cast
that
"Moonlight"
had
indeed
won,
showing
the
inside
of the
envelope
as
proof.
"I knew
I would
screw
this
up,"
said
Kimmel,
a
first-time
host.
Gasps
were
heard
around
the
auditorium.
Presenters,
winners
and
Academy
of
Motion
Pictures
Arts and
Sciences
huddled
to
discuss
the
debacle.
Beatty
refused
to give
up the
envelopes
until he
could
hand
them
first to
Jenkins.
Chazelle
and
Jenkins
hugged
amid the
chaos.
"Even in
my
dreams
this
cannot
be
true,"
said an
astonished
Jenkins,
once he
reached
the
microphone.
"To hell
with
dreams!
I'm done
with it
because
this is
true."
Backstage,
Stone
said she
was
holding
her
winning
envelope
at the
time. "I
think
everyone's
in a
state of
confusion
still,"
said
Stone.
Later
the
actress,
who
pledged
her deep
love of
"Moonlight,"
added,
"Is that
the
craziest
Oscar
moment
of all
time?
Cool!"
It was,
nevertheless,
a
shocking
upset
considering
that "La
La Land"
came in
with 14
nominations,
a record
that
tied it
with
"Titanic"
and "All
About
Eve."
Barry
Jenkins'
tender,
bathed-in-blue
coming-of-age
drama,
made for
just
$1.5
million,
is an
unusually
small
Oscar
winner.
Having
made
just
over $22
million
as of
Sunday
at the
box
office,
it's one
of the
lowest
grossing
best-picture
winners
ever -
but also
one of
the most
critically
adored.
"Moonlight,"
released
by indie
distributor
A24,
also had
some
major
muscle
behind
it,
including
Brad
Pitt's
Plan B,
which
also
backed
the 2015
winner
"12
Years a
Slave."
"It was
unfortunate
that
things
happened
as they
did but,
goddamn,
we won
best
picture,"
the
still
cool and
composed
Jenkins
told
reporters.
The "La
La Land"
team was
celebrating
onstage
when
producer
Jordan
Horowitz
took to
the
microphone
to say:
"There's
been a
mistake.
'Moonlight,'
you guys
won best
picture."
He then
graciously
passed
his
statue
to the
"Moonlight"
producers,
saying,
"This is
not a
joke."
"I
noticed
the
commotion
that was
happening
and I
thought
that
something
strange
had
occurred,"
Jenkins
said
backstage.
"The
last 20
minutes
of my
life
have
been
insane."
"Moonlight"
co-star
Mahershala
Ali, the
supporting
actor
winner,
said the
conclusion
"threw
me a
bit."
''I
don't
want to
go up
there
and take
anything
from
someone,"
he said
afterward.
"It's
very
hard to
feel joy
in a
moment
like
that."
In a
statement,
PwC
apologized
to each
film,
Beatty,
Dunaway
and
Oscar
viewers.
"The
presenters
had
mistakenly
been
given
the
wrong
category
envelope
and when
discovered,
was
immediately
corrected,"
said the
accounting
firm.
PwC,
which
has long
watched
over the
Oscar
ballots,
said it
was
currently
investigating
"how
this
could
have
happened."
For "La
La
Land," a
musical
in which
reality
repeatedly
intrudes
on
fantasy,
it was
another
alternate
ending.
"La La
Land"
still
collected
a
leading
six
awards,
including
honors
for
cinematography,
production
design,
score,
the song
"City of
Stars"
and best
director.
Chazelle,
the
32-year-old
filmmaker,
became
the
youngest
to win
best
director.
"This
was a
movie
about
love and
I was
luckily
enough
to fall
in love
while
making
it,"
said
Chazelle,
speaking
about
his
girlfriend
and
Oscars
date,
Olivia
Hamilton.
Up until
the
frenzied
end, the
telecast
had
seesawed
between
jabs at
Donald
Trump
and
passionate
arguments
for
inclusivity.
"All you
people
out
there
who feel
like
there
isn't a
mirror
out
there
for you,
the
academy
has your
back,
the ACLU
has your
back and
for the
next
four
years we
will not
leave
you
alone,
we will
not
forget
you,"
said
Jenkins,
whose
film is,
in three
chapters,
about a
young
black
kid
growing
up poor
and gay
in
impoverished
Miami.
Kenneth
Lonergan,
the New
York
playwright
whose
last
film
("Margaret")
was
beset by
lawsuits
and
conflict,
won best
original
screenplay
for
"Manchester
by the
Sea."
''I love
the
movies.
I love
being
part of
the
movies,"
said
Lonergan.
After
the wild
ending,
Lonergan
deadpanned
to
reporters,
"It
turned
out that
we
actually
won best
picture."
Shortly
later,
Affleck
- in one
of the
night's
most
closely
watched
races,
won best
actor -
his
first
Oscar -
for his
soulful,
grief-filled
performance
in
Lonergan's
film.
Affleck
and
Denzel
Washington
("Fences")
were
seen as
neck-and-neck
in the
category.
An
admittedly
"dumbfounded"
Affleck
looked
shocked
when his
name was
read.
"Man I
wish I
had
something
bigger
and more
meaningful
to say,"
said
Affleck,
who
hugged
his more
famous
brother,
Ben,
before
taking
the
stage.
The show
kicked
off with
Justin
Timberlake
dancing
down the
Dolby
Theatre
aisles,
singing
his
ebullient
song,
"Can't
Stop the
Feeling,"
from the
animated
film
"Trolls."
It was
an early
cue that
the
Oscars
would
steer,
at least
in part,
toward
festiveness
rather
than
heavy-handedness.
Protests,
boycotts
and
rallies
have
swirled
ahead of
Sunday
night's
Oscars.
But
Kimmel,
in his
opening
monologue,
quickly
acknowledged
that he
"was not
that
guy" to
heal a
divided
America.
But he
pointedly
led a
standing
ovation
for the
"overrated"
Meryl
Streep
and
later
tweaked
the
president
by
tweeting
to him
on air,
including
telling
him that
Streep
"says
hi."
Viola
Davis,
co-star
of
Denzel
Washington's
August
Wilson
adaptation
"Fences,"
won best
supporting
actress.
She and
Ali,
both
widely
expected
winners,
marked
the
first
time in
more
than a
decade
that
multiple
Oscar
acting
honors
went to
black
actors.
"I
became
an
artist,
and
thank
god I
did,
because
we are
the only
profession
to
celebrate
what it
means to
live a
life,"
said
Davis,
the best
supporting
actress
winner.
"So
here's
to
August
Wilson,
who
exhumed
and
exalted
the
ordinary
people."
The
evening's
most
blunt
protest
came
from a
winner
not in
attendance.
Best
foreign
film for
the
second
time
went to
Asghar
Farhadi,
director
of
Iran's
"The
Salesman."
Farhadi,
who also
won for
his "A
Separation,"
had said
he
wouldn't
attend
because
of
Trump's
travel
ban to
seven
predominantly
Muslim
nations.
Anousheh
Ansari,
an
Iranian
astronaut,
read a
statement
from
Farhadi.
"I'm
sorry
I'm not
with you
tonight,"
it read.
"My
absence
is out
of
respect
for the
people
of my
country
and
those of
other
six
nations
who have
been
disrespected
by the
inhumane
law that
bans
entry of
immigrants
to the
U.S."
The
broadcast
often
veered
between
such
strong
personal
statements
and
Kimmel's
efforts
to keep
things a
little
lighter
with
bits
reminiscent
of his
late-night
show.
Shortly
before
he led a
dazed,
unsuspecting
tour
group
into the
theater,
presenter
Gael
Garcia
Bernal,
the
Mexican
actor,
declared:
"As a
migrant
worker,
as a
Mexican,
and as a
human
being, I
am
against
any
wall."
Rich
Moore,
one of
the
three
directors
of
Disney's
best
animated
film
winner "Zootopia,"
described
the
movie as
about
"tolerance
being
more
powerful
than
fear of
the
other."
Mel
Gibson's
World
War II
drama
"Hacksaw
Ridge"
was,
surprisingly,
the
evening's
first
double
winner,
taking
awards
for
editing
and
sound
mixing.
Gibson,
for a
decade a
pariah
in
Hollywood,
was
seated
front
and
center
for the
show,
and was
a
frequent
presence
throughout.
Ezra
Edelman's
"O.J.:
Made in
America"
took
best
documentary,
making
it - at
467
minutes
- the
longest
Oscar
winner
ever,
beating
out the
1969
Best
Foreign
Language
Film
winner
"War and
Peace"
(431
minutes).
Edelman's
documentary,
while it
received
an
Oscar-qualifying
theatrical
release,
was seen
by most
on ESPN
as a
serial,
prompting
some to
claim
its
place
was at
the
Emmys,
not the
Oscars.
Edelman
dedicated
the
award to
the
victims
of the
famous
crime,
Nicole
Brown
Simpson
and
Ronald
Goldman.
"This is
also for
other
victims,
victims
of
police
violence,
police
brutality,"
Edelman
said.
"This is
their
story as
it is
Ron and
Nicole's."
The "OscarsSoWhite"
crisis
of the
last two
years
was
largely
quelled
this
season
by a
richly
diverse
slate of
nominees,
thanks
to films
like
"Moonlight,"
''Fences"
and
"Hidden
Figures."
A record
six
black
actors
are
nominated.
For the
first
time
ever, a
person
of color
is
nominated
in each
acting
category.
"I want
to say
thank
you to
President
Trump,"
Kimmel
said in
the
opening.
"Remember
last
year
when it
seemed
like the
Oscars
were
racist?"
The
nominees
follow
the
efforts
by
Academy
of
Motions
Pictures
Arts and
Sciences
President
Cheryl
Boone
Isaacs
to
diversify
the
membership
of the
largely
white,
older
and male
film
academy.
"Tonight
is proof
that art
has no
borders,
no
single
language
and does
not
belong
to a
single
faith,"
said
Isaacs.
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