The creators of Everything, Everywhere, At Once (from left) Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang and Daniel Kwan pose with golden statuettes at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on March 13, 2023.
Los Angeles – This year's 95th year of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was dominated by the crazy sci-fi comedy Everything, Everywhere, At Once, which was declared the best film of the past year and also collected another six golden statuettes. Four Oscars, including the one for the best foreign film, went to the creators of the war drama On the Western Front Calm, which was filmed mainly in the Czech Republic. However, none of the four Czechs nominated for their work on this film won in their category.
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Photo gallery: 2023 Oscars
The film Everything, Everywhere, Suddenly has dominated the American film awards season in recent weeks and has now crowned its winning campaign with the most prestigious award ever. In addition to the Oscar for best film, this multi-genre spectacle also has a statuette for editing and original screenplay, the film academy also praised the direction of the author duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.
The original film also won all the acting categories except for the best male performance in the main role, where he did not have a representative. According to the journalLos Angeles Times became only the third film to collect three acting awards. So far, only the creators of the dramas Tram to the Station of Desire from 1951 and Television Company from 1976 have achieved this success.
The main character of Everything, Everywhere, Suddenly was played by Michelle Yeoh, who became the first Asian winner of the leading actress category in the history of the Oscars. “For all the little boys and girls who look like me and are watching, this is a sign of hope and opportunity,” she said as she accepted the gold statuette. “And ladies, don't ever let anyone tell you that you're past the zenith,” added the 60-year-old native of Malaysia.
Everything, everywhere, they eat is described as a somewhat unconventional winner of the main Oscar category, where dramas usually score. The AP agency, for example, contrasts this year's result with fifty years ago, when the most prestigious award was won by the film The Godfather. “Everything, everywhere, suddenly triumphed with a distinctly different narrative of the immigrant experience. His eccentric story of a Chinese immigrant family… mixes science fiction and alternate reality with the theme of an ordinary woman and laundromat owner,” she writes.
The American Academy announced Brendan Fraser as the best actor in a leading role, who also received his first Oscar nomination at the age of 54. He takes home the iconic statuette for his portrayal of a reclusive, obese English teacher in the drama Whale. The New York Times (NYT) noted, that the biggest winner of the 95th Oscars is perhaps the film studio A24, under whose banner the Whale and Everything, everywhere, at the same time were created.
The new adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel Peace on the Western Front also did relatively well , which, according to the NYT, became the most successful picture of the Netflix video library at the Oscars with four awards. In addition to the category of foreign films, it was also successful in those for the best music, cinematography and film scenography.
However, four Czech filmmakers who, together with their colleagues, were nominated for Oscars for sound (Viktor Prášil), masks (Linda Eisenhamerová) and visual effects (Viktor Müller and Kamil Jafar) remained without awards. The creators of Top Gun: Maverick, Whale and Avatar: The Way of Water succeeded in these categories. Even after this year's winners have been announced, the wait for a new Czech Oscar winner continues, which has been going on since 2008 and the success of Markéta Irglová with the song Falling Slowly.
Several films nominated in the main category ended up without an award, including the dark comedy The Fairies of Inisherin, which went into the ceremony with nine nominations. Even the psychological drama Tár did not win a single Oscar, although it had six nominations.
The award for the best screenplay based on the original goes to Women Talking (Let the women speak), about the dilemma of a group of women living in a religious community, the Academy declared the best animated film Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio and in the feature documentary category, Navalny scored points about the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The best movie song is Naatu Naatu from the Indian action movie RRR.
These and other nominated songs were performed during the three-and-a-half-hour ceremony, during which pop stars Rihanna and Lady Gaga and acting legends including Salma Hayek and Harrison Ford took turns on the stage of the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles to announce the winner of the main category. The climax of the film awards season went off without a hitch this time after last year's gala was derailed by actor Will Smith's physical attack on the presenter for a joke about his wife. It was not immediately clear whether the Academy was able to reverse the downward trend in Oscar viewership.
Overview of the 2022 Oscar winners
Best Picture:
Everything, Everywhere, At Once – Producers Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang
Director:
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – Everything, Everywhere, At Once
Starring:
Brendan Fraser – The Whale
Leading Actress:
Michelle Yeoh – Everything, Everywhere, At Once
Supporting Actor:
Ke Huy Quan – Everything, Everywhere, At Once
Actress in supporting role:
Jamie Lee Curtis – Everything, everywhere, at once
Foreign feature film:
Quiet on the Western Front – Germany, directed by Edward Berger
Best Animated Film:
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio – directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson
Camera:
James Friend – Quiet on the Western Front
Original script:
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – Everything, everywhere, at once
< strong>Screenplay based on:
Sarah Polley – Women Talking
Music:
Volker Bertelmann – Calm on the Western Front
Best song:
Naatu Naatu – music by M.M. Kirāvānī, text by Chandrabose; RRR
Film scenography:
Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper – Peace on the Western Front
Costumes:
Ruth Carter – Black Panther: Long Live Wakanda
Masques:
Adrien Morot, Judy Chin and Anne Marie Bradley – The Whale
Editing:
Paul Rogers – Everything, Everywhere, At Once
Sound:
Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor – Top Gun: Maverick
Visual Effects:
Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett – Avatar: The Way of Water
< p>Feature documentary:
Navalny (Navalnyj) – directed by Daniel Roher
Short documentary:
Elephant Charmers – directed by Kartiki Gonsalves
Animated short film:
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – directed by Peter Baynton
Short feature film:
An Irish Goodbye (Goodbye to Ireland) – directed by Tom Berkeley and Ross White
