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Update: ’12 Years a Slave’ Wins Best Picture at the Oscars

"Twelve Years a Slave" stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (far left) and Lupita Nyong'o (center) with director Steve McQueen (far right) at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Flickr photo by Steve Rhodes
“Twelve Years a Slave” stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (far left) and Lupita Nyong’o (center) with director Steve McQueen (far right) at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Flickr photo by Steve Rhodes

 

I wish to extend my hearty congratulations to those involved with the film 12 Years a Slave after its success at the Academy Awards last night, taking home the trophies for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was a not a clean sweep, and the Academy members rightly wanted to honor another ground breaking film, Gravity, with a slew of technical awards, Best Original Score for Steven Price, and the Best Director prize for Alfonso Cuarón. Interestingly, American Hustle got completely shut out. (A full list of winners can be found here.)

Back in November, after seeing 12 Years a Slave, I wrote a rather extensive analysis of the film.  If you are interested in reading it, click on this link. I have to say, it was refreshing to see for once that the Academy actually chose their Best Picture winner based on merit (at least in my opinion). The voters have a habit of going for feel good sentiment, or movies that seem to praise movie making, while shying away from films that are darker or deal with difficult subject matter. Well, not this year! Perhaps host Ellen DeGeneres was right: the Academy members’ only choices were to choose 12 Years a Slave or look like a bunch of racists.

One final note: the presenters for the Best Director award were Angelina Jolie and living legend Sidney Poitier, who was celebrating the 50th anniversary of his win for Best Actor, the first ever by an African-American. The main rival in this category to eventual winner Cuarón was Steve McQueen, the director of 12 Years a Slave. If McQueen had won, he would have become the first black director to win Hollywood’s top prize, and he would have received the statue from Sidney Poitier. I cannot help but think that this had something to do with the choice of presenter (as they could have easily had Poitier introduce another category), but it was not meant to be.

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