So the British Academy of Film and Tv Awards (BAFTAs) aren’t for everyone. They’re long, feel unnecessary, and honestly…who cares what some smug London academy thinks is the best film of the year?
For those who didn’t feel like watching the long, and significantly odd broadcast, here’s a quick rundown of the night.
Honestly it was a weird one. These Awards shows always seem to have some errors in broadcast or relatability, often criticised for long runtimes, endless speeches and a lack of diversity. In good news, this year’s BAFTAs only evidenced one of the three. It finished on time and kept its speeches short and sweet …but at what cost? The show presented statues to a full host of 47 white winners… sure there was a range of notable and worthy backgrounds amongst the winners but seriously – nothing for Danielle Deadwyler. Angela Bassett. Michelle Yeoh. Ke Huy Quan??!!
Honestly, this wasn’t even the worst part. The BAFTAs (and Oscars) are notoriously, predictably white. Just look at how they relagated Alison Hammond to her own little talk show backstage while Richard E Grant ran the actual show. As wholesome and lovely as Richard was (the cape, the tears, the unbridled joy) – this was an unnecessary choice.
It firstly seemed like an attempt to make the show longer, since the last 4 awards were scheduled to be presented live. While the physical awards show starts at about 5pm, the BBC broadcast begins at 7pm, leaving those sitting down in London’s Royal Festival Hall with a lot of time to kill.
But the couch convos between Hammond and various winners, presenters, and for some reason Ginger Spice, actually meant at least 8 awards were cut from the broadcast. And I say 8 because at the speed in which they rushedly showed us a snippet of each award I barely had time to read what the film won for, let alone count them. Plus they cut Gwendoline Christie’s presenting moment – those monsters!
Cutting a range of craft categories is something which the Oscars got a huge amount of backlash for last year – so to fix that the BAFTAs just don’t tell anyone. The insensitivity to a range of vital moviemaking industries. And considering they had just awarded the BAFTA fellowship to a costume designer, Sandy Powell, who specifically thanked such industries in her speech; well the whole thing was just a bit awkward. You can’t just skip vital categories like Best Film Not In The English Language and Best Documentary, and expect no one to notice.
Ultimately such cuts seemed to pay off when the broadcast finished on time, with a more energetic live section to finish it off – but at such unnecessary costs.
The whole night touched upon a key question of why aren’t the BAFTA’s always live? During the pre-recorded half many jokes were made stating “don’t mess up, we’re live”; only for Grant to spill the beans later and officially announce they were ‘now live!’ And believe me, viewers had been under no presumption that they were previously live.
It seemed every media outlet and every (London) film journalist on twitter had already spoiled all the winners before the broadcast even started on Sunday night. My twitter feed was awash with various announcements of Best Supporting Actor, Best Production Design, Best Animated Film – a full 50-60 minutes before the broadcast showed the award. So what gives… do the media know what time the public broadcast starts? Or do they just not care? And if the BAFTA’s are fine with this… what’s the point of even having the TV broadcast?
Surely with dwindling viewership across awards shows the best way to keep viewers watching is to ensure they have a reason to watch. Because if I can learn all the news ahead of time on Twitter, why even bother watching next year?
The successful live awards at the end of the show adequately proved that the BAFTAs can, and maybe should be live. So hopefully they will learn their lesson and aim bigger next year?
On a less pessimistic and more entrancing note – a few films did win big this weekend, despite the broadcast drama. Edward Berger’s devastating anti-war remake ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ took the lead winning 7 of its 14 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Hot on its tail was Elvis with 4 awards (although three were announced practically offscreen), and Banshees of Inisherin which swept up Original Screenplay, both best Supporting awards for Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon and Outstanding British film. Yes the famously Irish film was the best BRITISH film. The Irish film set during the Irish civil war, which was fought largely for the Ireland’s right to stay independent from Britain. Interesting.
Now I am Australian so I could have got this wrong: but it seems particularly ironic that the BAFTAs chose to mostly praise films securely set within the EU. ‘Banshees of Inisherin‘ was set and filmed in Ireland. ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ was set in Germany/France and filmed in the Czech Republic. Sure Banshees has a British director and British funding. Sure All Quiet touches upon vital anti-war sentiment, topical for a British nation currently supporting Ukraine in it’s defence against Russia. And yet I can’t help but feel these wins have someting to say about another little known British debate. What was it called again… oh yeah Brexit. But maybe that’s just me?
Ultimately it was a predictablely weird night. It certainly seems the BAFTAs have a lot to discuss before next years event… and the Oscars should certainly get ready if they want to win craziest award show two years running.
But for now here’s some of the more wholesome moments of the night:
⁃ Richard E. Grant arriving in a white cape like the lovely relatable nerd that he is
⁃ Ariana DeBose sings a tribute to women in film – a nice gesture but considering the sheer lack of support for female filmmakers, maybe a insincere distraction tactic from the Academy? DeBose is always marvelous though!
⁃ The return of Troy Kotsur and his translator’s unlucky mistake which almost awarded Carey Mulligan Best Supporting Actor (La La Land style)
– Troy Kotsur wearing Hot Dog fingers (from Everything Everywhere All At Once) and then breaking one off to give to Brendan Gleeson
⁃ Barry Keoghan’s delightfully swift round of thank yous, which included the entire nation of Ireland.
⁃ Jamie Lee Curtis and Anya Taylor-Joy spilling the beans on industry WhatsApp groups, book clubs and a shared Netflix account
⁃ Charlotte Wells of course winning Outstanding Debut, and offering sympathy for the nation of Turkey (where Aftersun was filmed).
⁃ Charlotte describing how the award is for her mum. Literally “because I overpacked.”
⁃ Guillermo Del Toro advocating for animation as “A medium for art… Animation should be part of the conversation.”
⁃ Patrick Stewart going to open the winners envelope before the nominations had even played.
⁃ Emma Mackey receiving the EE Rising Star. Her speech was delightful and notably surprised. With a crammed category of deserving nominees, is there a chance Sex Education fans dominated the voting a little on this? Her joy and shock was lovely though.
⁃ Cate Blanchett predictably winning Best Actress and seemingly annoyed/unsurprised. I got the sense she had hoped Viola Davis or Danielle Deadwyler might win here since they were snubbed from the Oscar nominees. And her speech seemed to back this up. “We’re just the tip of the iceberg every year. These idiosyncratic, remarkable performances just break down the myth that women’s experience is monolithic. So thank you to BAFTA for recognising all of us. We sit in dialogue with one another.” She certainly appears to be hinting at the dialogue surrounding the dramatic lead actress race this year. A classy way of using her win for good I would say.
– ‘All Quiet On the Western Front’ continually using their various wins to remind everyone of the upcoming one year anniversary of Russia’s invansion of Ukraine, even though they were ‘jokingly’ told not to mention the war.