They say in live TV, anything that can go wrong will. And on Monday afternoon (my time), something went calamitously wrong. I refer, obviously, to the Best Picture presentation blunder at the Academy Awards. Poor Bonnie and Clyde, and the show's producer and director! The one category they could least afford to fuck up, and it was the one they did.
It's since been revealed Beatty and Dunaway were accidentally given a back-up of the envelope that was given to Best Actress presenter Leonardo DiCaprio; after the show, that category's winner, the breathtaking Emma Stone, thus had to confirm her own win was legitimate. Did this happen due to a mad rush backstage, or just somebody being careless? We may never know, but at least one representative, Brian Cullinan, of the Academy's vote-counting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, has claimed responsibility for the error.
I also feel dreadful for the producers of La La Land to have been given their statuettes, only to then have to hand them over within minutes. (However, Moonlight's director Barry Jenkins later said in a backstage interview that both camps had "hugged it out."*)
I'm also still stewing over two questions: 1. Since Warren and Faye evidently knew after reading their card that it was the wrong one, why didn't they immediately intervene? And; 2. as the orchestra is meant to know all the winners in advance so as to play the right musical theme, why did they, too, go along with it? Again, I guess we may never know.
After this I'd say next year, several winners will echo what Martin Scorsese (jokingly) said upon winning Best Director in 2007, after seven losses: "Could you double-check the envelope?"
Wherever he is now, Jack Palance, who was rumoured to have read 1992 Best Supporting Actress winner Marisa Tomei's name out mistakenly, must be elated to be finally off the hook. And the blunder was even referenced in Queensland's state parliament here in Australia yesterday. I saw that myself on the news.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/2963586/oscars-2017-accountants-pwc-apologise-for-epic-mistake-after-la-la-land-is-wrongly-named-best-picture-instead-of-real-winners-moonlight/
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