There was a moment during tonight's BAFTA's, just as Tilda Swinton hit the stage to announce Best Director, that it was clear no other movies were getting a sniff. As the usual Brit self-congratulating seemed even more nauseating than usual, I remarked to a friend; 'If Tom Hooper wins the Best Director prize for
The King's Speech, then I'm digging out my film camera and I'm shooting the Union Jack for 90 mins with the national anthem playing - with one static, long shot... the patriotism will be overwhelming for these guys and I'll win next year'. Swinton introduced the vignette and in a nice piece I am reminded by the complex technical marvel of Inception, the vibrancy and electricism that Darren Aronofsky shot Black Swan with, the masterstroke of genius that true artist
David Fincher showed in Social Network - and in that 45 second feature, it was plain and obvious how these guys were working on such a very different level to
Tom Hooper, whose nominated film was an uplifting writing & actor's showcase. And... wouldn't ya know, against all odds and on somebody's elses turf... Fincher trumped the home crowd favourite, overcoming the impossible odds and for a brief moment, all seemed right with the world. In a rather predictable night elsewhere, The King's Speech took home 7 prizes overall for Best Film, Best British Film (which essentially is what Best Film is at this ceremony), Best Original Screenplay!! (I apologise to Chris Nolan on there behalf) and the acting nods for
Colin Firth,
Geoffrey Rush and somehow,
Helena Bonham Carter. A wonderful movie with some fine, fine performances, of course... but seriously, Helena over the two gals from The Fighter?
Anyway, only three joys from the whole night for me -
Roger Deakins winning Best Cinematography for True Grit (which we only found out at the end of the show),
Christopher Lee's emotional lifetime achievement win for simply being Christopher Lee and of course,
Rosamund Pike struggling when her auto-queue went down, stumbling her way through, badly ad-libbing and then almost announcing the winners by accident before showcasing the nominee's. I felt bad for her until I remembered she owed us one after her Die Another Day performance. Bring on the Oscars then in precisely two weeks time. On someone elses turf, it will be interesting to see how The King's Speech fares against The Social Network then, as some of the performance awards aside, there's only one film that deserves the top prizes. And I will never, ever, watch the Oscars again if Tom Hooper wins over Aronofsky, Fincher, O Russell & The Coens.