Correct me if I am wrong .But this is the first time in American cinema’s history that two Black actors have won in the lead actors’ category.That Chadwick Boseman would win the Best Actor award for his rousing posthumous performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was a given. I am just surprised that ‘Ma Rainey’ Viola Davis didn’t win anything, black bottom or not. Boseman who rose to superstardom as Black Panther didn’t get sympathy votes because he is dead. Awards don’t work that way in America. I am a hundred percent sure he would have won even if he were alive. What a contrast to our own nation where you are instantly anointed to greatness if you are dead and your abysmally mediocre posthumous film gets designated as a classic.
Actor Daniel Kaluuya who won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in Judas and the Black Messiah, also has a ‘Black Panther’ connection. He plays the leader of a black protest-group in Britain called Black Panther in the 1960s.Jodie Foster who won the same award in the female category for The Mauritanian is no stranger to awards. 33 years ago Ms Foster won every award for her portrayal of the gangrape survivor on The Accused. She proves it’s not about the colour of the skin or the number of years on your passport. It’s just being gifted.Period.
Another real-life hero , Andra Day playing the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday walked away with the Golden Globe for Best Actress in The United States Versus Billie Holiday . She is sassy and stunning in the part, Billie Holiday comes alive in Ms Day’s performance.
The Best Picture and Best Director for Chloe Zhao in Nomadland comes as no surprise. The haunting film portrays homelessness as much much more just a real-estate issue. Loneliness desolation, rejection and self- realization all find a place in Ms Zhao’s meditative melancholic (e)motion picture.
This brings me to the Golden Globe for best motion picture in a foreign language. There are no blacks and whites in Minari, only real people who speak to one another in Korean but are American. These are immigrants who have moved far away from their roots and are not quite sure if their adopted home has any real place for them.But the film is not a dark immigrants’ story. It is remarkably lighthearted and at times,killingly funny.
The triumph of Minari is not cultural. It is much more than that.
As for television, do the two awards for The Queen’s Gambit Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for Anya Taylor-Joy, and Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television—surprise you? It would have been criminal to overlook the excellence of this chess-nut drama.
With due respects to The Crown and our own Scam 1992 The Harshad Mehta Story , The Queen’s Gambit was the best thing to happen on the home screen in 2020.
