Skip to main content

Oscar Success Stories: Gary Oldman, James Ivory and Roger Deakins



Was watching Oscar yesterday. Noticed two lovely things in particular which gladdened my heart. You see, this wasn't first Oscar just for beloved Gary but two more renowned Hollywood perfectionists. Best Adapted Screenplay award went to James Ivory who has been writing and directing films for eternity now. Under the Aegis of fabled Merchant-Ivory Productions of whose he was one part, he gave us memorable gems in form of 'A Room With A View', 'Howard's End', 'Remains of the Day'. Ismail Merchant, his closest friend, didn't win the Oscar as well although all of these above mentioned film of theirs scored tons of nominations. However, their favorite writer, Ruth Pravar Jhabwella, did win the Oscar for them (for Remains of the Day). James Ivory, a man in his late 80s, received a thunderous applause and standing ovation from Oscar crowd. He remembered both Jhabwella and Merchant and that was heart-touching. It was his fourth nomination and although there was a strong possibility he couldn't win his Oscar (considering the competition), Hollywood through its appreciation of his craft made his evening special. Lovely stuff!!

The second fairy tale ended when Roger Deakins, a whopping 14 time Oscar Nominee (yes, you read that right, 14 times) won his Oscar for Blade Runner 2049 in the best cinematography category. Now this guy is creating blinding visuals for us for last 30 years and his groundbreaking work in Blade Runner 2049 finally brought him the coveted trophy. They say dreams do come true but how, 90th Oscar told us perfectly.


And we have talked enough of Gary, so let's leave it at there (although it could have been his 7th Oscar win, or at least the nomination).

A royal three fingers salute to the craftsmanship of these three legendary motion picture icons....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Racing Extinction (2015) : A Commentary

It's really hard to switch on to a different language from the one you have constantly been tinkering with. I grew so accustomed to writing in Hindi in last few days that it started dawning on me that I might never be good again with my English. So this is a tester, ladies and gentlemen. Yesterday, one of my movie group friends, an American by nationality, questioned my fondness of documentaries. I specifically wrote in one of my columns that documentaries demand your unwavering attention and once you gave 'that' to them, you are rewarded much more handsomely than a proper, narrative, fictitious film. My reasoning for believing so is that a documentary is an experience of a creative process. It doesn't get made to 'entertain' you. They are there to reveal something to you. They teach you something. You get overwhelmed by them. 'Racing Extinction (2015)' was one such documentary. I watched it in last couple of days. I couldn't complete it in one ...

Love and Friendship

Friendship is an aspect of life that’s not controlled by its beholders. Ideal friendships, well they are the things of past now. Many a times we have seen our parents or their parents talking about their old great friends and how amusingly they tell us about their bonding, the moments they spent together and we see a ‘priceless’ twinkle in their eyes…..that’s something which is missing from modern friendships. There are terms & phrases like ‘yaar tu to apna bhai hai’, ‘yaar tu to ghar ka aadmi hai’ which even today invoke something very beautiful inside our hearts but we all know that the feelings underneath them are ‘hollow’, they are just mere words, ‘emotionless’ and ‘impassive’. Well who am I to comment on such an indefinable ‘qualitative’ perspective? I’m one of you, those wretched creatures that are still in need of true, great friendships. Well I certainly can’t say that I haven’t got friends. I’ve got friends, plenty of them in fact, and some of them are real great. I s...

Book Review: Unanswered

'Unanswered' is a book penned by Mr. Kunal Uniyal and it's his third book. I am calling it a book, using a common noun to describe it and I have a good enough reason for doing so. It's a book that consists off both poems and prose and I was in real dilemma picturing its prognosis in my mind. It started with a poem named 'You and I' and beautiful it was, all poised and lyrical. And then came a snippet of a prose by the name 'Life of a Yogi'. They were really not connected and I was perplexed. Then I allowed myself some comfort and decided to dig up some more. Some more beautiful poems and accompanying yet again not quite related passages of prose followed but now they looked more in shape and very much in order. Now I was beginning to realize that there was more to this book than met my eyes earlier and it's scope is much wider that what I originally thought. You are required to engage yourself with this book and once you do that, you will know you ar...